Onwards.

Hello.

What a fortnight.

So the The Silence of Bees has opened and closed. What a wonderfully complex learning experience that was. It was my first time writing and directing a piece – I don’t know how folk do that time and time again and keep their marbles. To be frank I found it tricky, I missed having a second head to bounce things off. I was lucky to have a very generous cast and the support of some wonderful mentors/friends. The audiences were just wonderful and I got some useful/lovely feedback. Behaviour is about taking risks, some which pay off, some which don’t – and that’s okay. As long as you keep learning it can’t be a bad thing right? It was a great journey to go on, I’m very proud of everyone involved and most importantly I hope we helped raise awareness of the bees along the way.

Last night I saw the two shows which won Platform 18. Alas I am currently choked with the cold so I’m annoyed that my focus wasn’t as sharp as it should have been. I don’t want to speak about them too much as I don’t want to spoil them. Both shows took risks in entirely different ways. Both made enthralling stylistic choices and dealt with intriguing subject matter. I thought it was interesting that the jumping off point for both shows were events from over 10years ago – I had a sudden wave of feeling old. Beats made me want to be 18 again getting the 26 bus in Edinburgh filled with ideas, music and substances I probably shouldn’t have been. It also made me want to dance; it was joyous in that sense.

ANYWAY I won’t say anything more, both are best seen through your own eyes not through the wittery haze of my musings. Kudos to everyone involved in both shows!

I won’t be blogging again as I’m working out of the UK for the next fortnight or so. I’m really sorry to be missing the final few pieces.

But I am saddled with new lessons, thoughts and ideas.
Face this onwards now.

Onwards we all go.

Sx

Tweets by stefsmith

It’s never too late, never too late to try
Cause if we all had to change, we all just would
And we would move closer and that would be good
And we would buy local and we would buy less
And we’d realise that wasn’t our happiness
No it wasn’t our happiness.

Tickets booked.

Kieran Hurley – Platform 18 recipient (performing BEATS at Behaviour with Johnny Whoop)

Hello.

I’ve just booked some tickets for Behaviour, and I’m pretty excited about it, so it feels like an appropriate moment to kick things off with my first blog post on this thing with a Things I’m Looking Forward To Seeing type post.  Here goes…

I’m looking forward to catching Gob Squad, I’ve never seen their work before but they seem like an exciting bunch.  In the same evening I’m going to see Ann Liv Young’s Mermaid Show.  I’ve always found her work compelling and challenging and a bit thrilling (and occasionally baffling, and often difficult).   Ann Liv is always a popular fixture at Arches festivals and it feels like a while since she’s been here, exhilarating and angering audiences in almost equal measure, so it’s nice to have her back.  I’ll never forget her appearance at a Scratch Night which doubled as a leaving celebration for Andy Arnold before he moved to the Tron (“Andrew…  is there someone called Andrew in tonight?”).  I have to say I’ve never quite been able to figure out my own position on Ann Liv’s work, or what I’ve seen of it.  I think I’ve never been quite sure what to do with all the stuff she throws at me, or what she wants me to do with it, or something.  Maybe asking that question is enough – I don’t know – either way I’m looking forward to this chance to see this new work, maybe bringing some new perspectives of my own.

I’m stoked about The Oh Fuck Moment.  It’s one of those shows that loads of people who I respect and like have spoken really highly of, and I was delighted when I saw it was coming to Glasgow.  Chris Thorpe is doing a discussion event on the day I’m going too, which I’m sure will be really interesting.  White Rabbit, Red Rabbit is another one that has been on my radar for a while now that I’m massively looking forward to.  It’s on the same week as my show, so I’ve booked in for one of the nights later on in the run, optimistically hoping that by then I’ll be on top of everything enough to be able to handle to going to see it immediately before performing. We’ll see.

I’m also pleased to be able to catch Tania El Khoury’s fascinating sounding and beautifully titled Maybe If You Choreograph Me, You Will Feel Better. I met Tania this year in Lisbon where she was performing this piece as part of a Forest Fringe Microfestival at Culturgest, which I was also performing at. I missed this piece then, and I’m glad to get the chance to experience it here in my home city.  I’m also looking forward to The Silence of Bees by Stef Smith.  A rehearsed reading of Stef’s  play Jamais Vu was probably one of the highlights of last year’s Arches Live festival for me, and I think it’s great that there is room for that important type of contemporary theatre practice that gets called New Writing in this eclectic programme.

I don’t know much about Robert Softley’s If These Spasms Could Speak, or Martin Messier’s Sewing Machine Orchestra, but I think both sound like they could be fascinating and beautiful in very different ways, and also hope to be able to jump out of rehearsal at some point to catch Gary McNair talk about time-anxiety in the Arches restaurant with Hole In My Pocket.   The Buzzcut line-up looks impressive and I’m going to try to be around that festival as much as time allows, and if I can fit it in around rehearsals, I might also catch installations by Torsten Lauschmann and Inbetween Time, and maybe even make it along to Cycling Gymkhana at the Kelvin Hall, the last event in the Bicycle Boom series by the brilliant Eilidh MacAskill.  And of course, I’m really looking forward to seeing Gary Gardiner’s new piece Thatcher’s Children, which I’ll probably catch in Edinburgh when we both take our shows to the Traverse for a Platform 18 double-bill.

Who knows whether I’ll make it to all that stuff, alongside actually making a new show.  It might not be possible but it’s going to be worth trying. Of course I’m really delighted about being in Edinburgh for a week at the Traverse, but the down side of all that is I’ll miss shows by both Nic Green and Bryony Kimmings, both of which promise to be great, and I’ll also not get a chance to get my hair cut by a child (unless I organise this myself, separately, in a context not necessarily framed as art).

I think I’ll sign off now, as I seem to have covered the lot and there are only so many different ways you can say “I’m excited about…” or “I’m looking forward to…”

Kieran